In the past 15 years, four-year-olds' enrollment in state-funded pre-kindergarten in the United States has doubled, and advocates have pushed for further expansion. Although research has shown that pre-K programs can have important benefits, most existing studies have focused on small or...

This paper examines how financial aid reform based on postsecondary institutional performance impacts student choice. Federal and state regulations often reflect concerns about the private, for-profit sector's poor employment outcomes and high loan defaults, despite the sector's possible...

This paper considers how a state such as Michigan can increase the economic development benefits of higher education. Research evidence suggests that higher education increases local economic development principally by increasing the quality of the local workforce, and secondarily by increasing...

As the costs of higher education rise, many communities have begun to adopt their own financial aid strategy: place-based scholarships for students graduating from the local school district. Some place-based scholarships impose merit- and/or need-based restrictions, while others require little...

We use a regression-discontinuity design to study the effects of double blocking sixth-grade students in reading and mathematics on their achievement across three years of middle school. To identify the effect of the intervention, we use sharp cutoffs in the test scores used to assign students...

We estimate the effects on postsecondary education outcomes of the Kalamazoo Promise, a generous place-based college scholarship. We identify Promise effects using difference-indifferences, comparing eligible to ineligible graduates before and after the Promise's initiation. According to our...

This report focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kalamazoo Public Schools District in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which closed its doors to students from mid-March 2020 to June 2021. During this time, instruction transitioned from face-to-face to virtual, with students having three options for...